Air Force One (film)
| budget = $85 million | gross = $315.2 million }}Air Force One is a 1997 American political action-thriller film written by Andrew W. Marlowe, and directed and co-produced by Wolfgang Petersen. It is about a group of terrorists who hijack Air Force One, and the U.S. president's attempt to retake the plane, to rescue everybody. The film stars Harrison Ford and Gary Oldman, as well as Glenn Close, Xander Berkeley, William H. Macy, Dean Stockwell, and Paul Guilfoyle. A box office success with generally positive critical reviews, the film was one of the most popular action films of the 1990s. Plot A U.S. and Russian joint military operation results with special forces capturing General Ivan Radek (Jürgen Prochnow), the dictator of Kazakhstan. Three weeks later, a diplomatic dinner is held in Moscow to celebrate the capture of the Kazakh dictator, at which President of the United States James Marshall (Harrison Ford) expresses his regret that action had not been taken sooner to prevent the suffering caused by Radek. He also vows that his administration will take a firmer stance against despotism and that they will never negotiate with terrorists. President Marshall, along with his wife Grace (Wendy Crewson), daughter Alice (Liesel Matthews), and several of his Cabinet and advisors, board Air Force One to return to the United States. In addition, a number of members of the press corps have been invited aboard. U.S. Secret Service agent Gibbs (Xander Berkeley), acting as a mole for a group of six Radek loyalists led by Ivan Korshunov (Gary Oldman), sneaks them onto the plane disguised as journalists. Once in flight, Gibbs kills several Secret Service agents guarding the plane's armory, allowing Korshunov and his men to seize weapons and start a massive shootout. The pilots, Colonel Axelrod (Michael Ray Miller) and Lieutenant Colonel Ingraham (Carl Weintraub), attempt an emergency landing at Ramstein Air Base in Germany. However, the terrorists breach the cockpit and murder them, and take control, diverting the plane towards Kazakhstan. Secret Service agents race a reluctant Marshall down to an escape pod in the cargo hold, where he seemingly escapes as the pod is ejected. The passengers and crew are taken hostage by the hijackers and imprisoned in the conference room. Believing the President has escaped, Korshunov separates Grace and Alice from the rest of the hostages and takes them to the communications room at the cockpit, planning to use them as leverage. Several F-15s escort Air Force One as the terrorists have it piloted towards Radek-loyal airspace. In Washington, D.C., Vice President Kathryn Bennett (Glenn Close) arrives at the White House, taking command of the situation in the White House Situation Room with U.S. Defense Secretary Walter Dean (Dean Stockwell) and other officials. Korshunov contacts Bennett and demands Radek's release, threatening to execute a hostage every half hour. Meanwhile, the U.S. military locates the escape pod but finds it empty. Unbeknownst to the hijackers, Marshall, a retired military aviator, veteran of the Vietnam War, and Medal of Honor recipient, had remained on board by hiding in the cargo hold. He kills two of Korshunov's men and contacts the White House via satellite phone, reminding Bennett not to negotiate with the terrorists. Marshall dumps some of the plane's fuel reserve in an attempt to force a landing. Instead, Korshunov demands a mid-air refueling. Marshall gains access to the conference room where the hostages are being held and he, along with his military advisors, including Major Caldwell (William H. Macy) and Chief of Staff Lloyd Shepherd (Paul Guilfoyle) devise a plan to trick the hijackers into taking Air Force One to a lower altitude for the refueling, allowing the hostages to parachute safely off the plane. Gibbs, hiding his true loyalties, joins them. Marshall sends a fax to the White House, directing the tanker to instruct the terrorists to drop from an altitude of 30,000 to 15,000 feet- low enough for the hostages to parachute to safety without suffocating. As a KC-10 tanker docks with Air Force One, Marshall and his advisors escort the hostages to the cargo hold, where the majority parachute away to safety, while Marshall, Caldwell, Shepherd, and Gibbs remain on board Air Force One; Korshunov discovers the deception and forces the plane away, causing the fuel to ignite and destroying the tanker. The group is recaptured, and Marshall reunites with his family. Korshunov beats Marshall and explains his actions, claiming that the collapse of the Soviet Union ruined his country. Korshunov demands that Marshall contact Russian President Petrov (Alan Woolf) to arrange for Radek's release. Marshall gives in to Korshunov's demands to save Alice. Bennett is urged by Dean to declare the President incapable under the 25th amendment, so as to override Radek's release, but she refuses. While Korshunov and his men are distracted by the news of Radek's release, Marshall breaks free and kills the last two of Korshunov's men. Korshunov tries to shoot Marshall, but Shepherd dives in and takes the bullet himself, saving the President's life. As the wounded Shepherd is tended to by Alice, Gibbs, and Caldwell, Korshunov drags Grace down to the plane's parachute ramp, where he dons a parachute and dumps the rest off the plane to ensure no one escapes. Marshall arrives and Grace manages to distract Korshunov, giving Marshall the opportunity to disarm him. In the ensuing fight, Marshall kills Korshunov by wrapping a strap around his neck and activating his parachute, pulling him outwards and breaking his neck. Marshall races back to contact Petrov and rescind his order, and Radek is fatally shot while attempting to flee custody. With his family safe and Gibbs tending to Shepherd's wound, Marshall, with Caldwell's help, directs the plane back towards friendly airspace, but Bennett alerts them of a squadron of Radek loyalist-piloted MiG-29s tailing them. The F-15s race to protect Air Force One, but the plane sustains heavy damage; one MiG ruptures Air Force One's fuel tanks, causing the plane to lose fuel, and when one F-15 pilot sacrifices himself to intercept a missile heading for Air Force One, shrapnel from the resulting explosion destroys its tail controls, rendering landing impossible. A nearby patrolling U.S. Air Force Special Operations Command MC-130E Combat Talon is called in to rescue Marshall and the others via zip-line. The MC-130 sends pararescuemen on tether lines to help rescue the survivors. After Grace, Alice and the injured Shepherd are evacuated, Marshall, Gibbs, and Caldwell remain on the plane, with only enough time for one to be rescued. Caldwell tells Marshall to go, but Gibbs reveals himself as the mole and kills Caldwell and the pararescueman, and attempts to save himself on the last remaining zip-line. Marshall overpowers Gibbs and attaches himself to the line, before the hook attaching it to the plane breaks off. Air Force One crashes into the Caspian Sea, killing Gibbs. The MC-130 airmen reel Marshall onto the MC-130, where he falls into his family's waiting arms. Everyone in the White House Situation Room celebrate as confirmation of Marshall’s rescue is broadcast over the plane's speakers, and Bennett tears up the presidential incapacity order. The MC-130 is subsequently dubbed with the call sign of Air Force One, and flies safely away with the First Family aboard, with its F-15 escorts. Cast * Harrison Ford as U.S. President James Marshall: The President of the United States, Marshall is a Vietnam War veteran and Medal of Honor recipient. Feigning escape during Air Force One's hijacking, he attempts to retake the aircraft while saving as many lives as possible. * Gary Oldman as Egor Korshunov: A Russian Radek loyalist who leads the hijacking of Air Force One. * Glenn Close as U.S. Vice President Kathryn Bennett: The Vice President of the United States, Bennett, throughout the Air Force One hijacking crisis, commands operations from the White House Situation Room, alongside Secretary of Defense Walter Dean and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Northwood. Despite all the tension, Bennett remains calm and collected during the entire ordeal, and refuses to make risky or poor decisions. * Wendy Crewson as U.S First Lady Grace Marshall * Liesel Matthews as First Daughter Alice Marshall * Dean Stockwell as U.S. Defense Secretary Walter Dean * Elya Baskin as Andrei Kolchak, Korshunov's best friend and pilot * Levan Uchaneishvili as Sergei Lenski, Korshunov's henchman * David Vadim as Igor Nevsky, Korshunov's henchman * Andrew Divoff as Boris Bazylev, Korshunov's henchman * Ilia Volok as Vladimir Krasin, Korshunov's henchman * Paul Guilfoyle as White House Chief of Staff Lloyd Shepherd * Xander Berkeley as U.S. Secret Service Special Agent in Charge Gibbs, of Presidential Protective Division. A mole who secretly helps the terrorists take over'' Air Force One''. * William H. Macy as Major Norman Caldwell, USAF, military aide to the President * Alan Woolf as Russian President Petrov * Tom Everett as U.S. National Security Advisor Jack Doherty * Jürgen Prochnow as General Ivan Radek: The dictator of a rogue terrorist regime in Kazakhstan that possessed stolen Soviet nuclear weapons, threatening to start a new Cold War, Radek's regime took the lives of 200,000 people. Captured by a joint Russian-American military ops team, Radek is imprisoned in Russia. The terrorists who take over Air Force One, demand Radek's release. * Donna Bullock as Deputy Press Secretary Melanie Mitchell * Michael Ray Miller as Colonel Axelrod, USAF, pilot of Air Force One: Axelrod attempts to make an emergency landing after the hijacking begins. He orders the flight crew, "No matter what happens, we land this aircraft, is that understood?" * Carl Weintraub as Lieutenant Colonel Ingraham, USAF, co-pilot of Air Force One: Ingraham attempts to help Axelrod emergency land the plane after the hijacking begins. * Spencer Garrett as White House Aide Thomas Lee * Bill Smitrovich as General Northwood * Glenn Morshower as U.S. Secret Service Agent Walters * David Gianopoulos as U.S. Secret Service Agent Johnson * Dan Shor as Notre Dame Aide * Philip Baker Hall as U.S. Attorney General Andrew Ward * Richard Doyle as Colonel Bob Jackson, USAF, Air Force One Backup Pilot * Willard Pugh as White House Communications Officer * Don R. McManus as Lt. Colonel Jack Carlton, F-15 "Halo Flight" Leader * J.A. Preston as USAF Major General: Having been President Marshall's Commanding Officer during the Vietnam War, he is the first to anticipate that Marshall is battling the hijackers. Production A large part of the crew took a tour of the real Air Force One before filming. They based some of the film's scenes, where the terrorists disguised as journalists survey the plane's layout and begin to take their seats, on the touring experience. The character of Deputy Press Secretary Melanie Mitchell was based largely on their real life tour guide, and the crew felt uncomfortable having to film the character's execution by the terrorists.Wolfgang Petersen audio commentary For the exterior scenes, the producers rented a Boeing 747-146 aircraft, N703CK from Kalitta Air and repainted it to replicate the iconic Air Force One livery. Scenes explaining Agent Gibbs' motivation for being the mole were cut from the final script. According to director Wolfgang Petersen, Gibbs was a former CIA agent who lost a lot after the end of the Cold War and thus became angry with the American government and wanted revenge. He knew the terrorists from his CIA days, so they included him in their operation. The scene was considered too long to tell, so it was cut from the film. The director also felt that it was unnecessary to add in the film so it was removed as it was irrelevant to the plot. He felt, "it's something insignificant that the audience doesn't really need to know about." Gary Oldman did not stay in character between the scenes. The director later said he called the filming experience "Air Force Fun" because of how comic and genial Oldman would be off-screen. He also said that Oldman would suddenly return to the menacing film persona like a shot. General Radek's palace, seen in the film's opening, was portrayed by two locations in Cleveland, Ohio: the exterior was Severance Hall, and the interior was the Cuyahoga County Courthouse. The Russian prison where Radek was incarcerated was the Ohio State Reformatory, previously seen in The Shawshank Redemption. Ramstein Air Base, Germany was portrayed by Rickenbacker Air National Guard Base, Ohio. The diplomatic dinner scene was shot at the Ebell of Los Angeles while a second unit captured scenes in Red Square in Moscow. Moscow Airport scenes which show the boarding of the plane and departure were shot in Los Angeles International Airport. F-15 Eagle aircraft from the 33d Operations Group, 33d Fighter Wing at Eglin AFB, Florida were used in the movie. Reception Box office The film was a critical and commercial success earning $172,650,002 (54.9%) domestically and $142,200,000 (45.1%) in other countries. It grossed a total of $315,156,409 worldwide in the box office. It was 1997's fifth highest-grossing film worldwide. Critical reception One of the most popular action films of the 1990s, Air Force One received generally positive reviews from critics. It holds an approval rating of 78% on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, based on 54 reviews with an average rating of 7/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "This late-period Harrison Ford actioner is full of palpable, if not entirely seamless, thrills." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 61 out of 100, based on 25 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale. Peter Travers of Rolling Stone awarded the film 3.5/4 stars, describing it as "superior escapism", and concluding, "Air Force One doesn't insult the audience. It is crafted by a film-maker who takes pride in the thrills and sly fun he packs into every frame. Welcome to something rare in a summer of crass commercialism: a class act." Todd McCarthy of Variety described the film as "a preposterously pulpy but quite entertaining suspense meller" that is "spiked by some spectacularly staged and genuinely tense action sequences." He lauded the film's antagonist: "Gary Oldman, in his second malevolent lead of the summer, after The Fifth Element, registers strongly as a veteran of the Afghan campaign pushed to desperate lengths to newly ennoble his country." Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle gave the film 5 stars of 5 saying, "it's a gamble". In a lukewarm review, Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film 2.5 stars out of 4, and found it flawed and cliché-ridden yet "well-served by the quality of the performances ... Air Force One is a fairly competent recycling of familiar ingredients, given an additional interest because of Harrison Ford's personal appeal. " Adam Mars-Jones of The Independent was more critical, calling it "so preposterous that it begins to seem like a science-fiction artifact...the product of a parallel-universe 1990s which somehow by-passed the decades since the 1950s." Conversely, Charles Taylor of Salon gave the film a negative review, saying the 2 hours of the film felt like an eternity. President Bill Clinton saw the film twice while in office and gave it good reviews. He noted, however, that certain elements of the film's version of Air Force One, such as the escape pod and the rear parachute ramp, did not reflect features of the actual Air Force One (though since many Air Force One features are highly classified and "need-to-know", these features cannot be completely ruled out). In the audio commentary, Wolfgang Petersen mused that although the real plane did not have those features at the time of the filming, they would probably be added by future governments. Legacy During his campaign for the Presidency of the United States in the 2016 presidential election, businessman and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said that Air Force One was his favorite film role of Ford's, because he "stood up for America". Ford responded that "it was just a film" and doubted that Trump's presidential bid would be successful. A Wall Street Journal poll in 2016 named Harrison Ford's James Marshall as the greatest fictional president. Accolades The film was nominated for two Academy Awards, for Best Film Editing and Best Sound, but lost both of them to Titanic. The film is recognized by American Film Institute in these lists: * 2001: AFI's 100 Years...100 Thrills – Nominated Score Randy Newman was initially hired to write the film score; however, Petersen considered his composition to be almost a parody and commissioned Jerry Goldsmith to write and record a more somber and patriotic score in just twelve days, with assistance from Joel McNeely. After the harrowing experience, Goldsmith vowed never again to take on such a last-minute task. Newman used some of his material from the rejected score in Toy Story 3. The music label Varèse Sarabande released a soundtrack album featuring Goldsmith's music. McNeely receives a credit on the back cover for "Additional Music in the Motion Picture", but none of his work is on the CD, although his cues include the material heard when Air Force One is under attack. The first track of the soundtrack, "The Parachutes", was used by Donald Trump during his campaign for President of the United States in 2016. The track was played in the background at the New York Hilton Midtown prior to Trump's victory speech, following Hillary Clinton's concession. Novelization A novelization of the film was published in June 1997 by author Max Allan Collins. Though the book has the same central plot and outcomes as the film, its main storyline has additional scenes and lines not in the film. The book develops characters more than the film, and unlike the movie, Gibbs's identity as the traitor is not revealed until the end of the book. It also presents a slightly alternate ending; Air Force One crashes in the Russian countryside, whereas in the film, Air Force One crashes into the Caspian Sea. See also *List of action films of the 1990s References Further reading * * * External links * * * * * * Fan script of Air Force One film Category:1990s action thriller films Category:1997 films Category:American anti-communist propaganda films Category:American action thriller films Category:American aviation films Category:American disaster films Category:American films Category:American political thriller films Category:Beacon Pictures films Category:Columbia Pictures films Category:English-language films Category:Film scores by Jerry Goldsmith Category:Film scores by Joel McNeely Category:Films about aviation accidents or incidents Category:Films about fictional Presidents of the United States Category:Films about aircraft hijackings Category:Films about terrorism Category:Films directed by Wolfgang Petersen Category:Films set in the Caspian Sea Category:Films set in Germany Category:Films set in Kazakhstan Category:Films set in Moscow Category:Films set in the White House Category:Films set in Washington, D.C. 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